Monthly Archives: June 2015

While retail gasoline has surged by 25 percent this year, diesel prices have fallen by more than a quarter a gallon. The difference between the two is the smallest in almost six years and may all but disappear in two weeks’ time, according to Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group.

The long-standing relationship between diesel and gasoline prices, which has kept gasoline selling at a discount to truckers’ favorite fuel since 2009, is unraveling under the weight of a larger-than-expected jolt to U.S. gasoline demand. The surge in consumption has bolstered prices of the motor-fuel far beyond the time they typically peak for the year.

“We’re consuming gasoline and exporting it about as fast as they can make it,” Flynn said. “Given the way gasoline demand has rebounded, I think diesel could be even in the next week or two.”

Throughout Knoxville on Wednesday, prices for diesel fuel ranged from 10 cents to 20 cents higher per gallon than for unleaded regular gasoline. At a Pilot station on Western Avenue, for instance, regular gas was $2.529, while diesel was $2.659, a 13-cent difference.

If you’re a water drinker – you may want to double check the label. Niagara Bottling is recalling several products after one of its spring sources was contaminated with E. coli.

The contamination was initially discovered in the water supply on June 10, but the company was not notified in a timely manner, so they have stopped using the source. And while Niagara says it has not received any complaints of injury or illness and their “finished product testing detected no contaminants or issues of any kind,” they are still voluntarily recalling all spring water products produced at the company’s facilities in Hamburg and Allentown, Pennsylvania, from June 10 to June 18.

The water included in the recall was sold under the following brand names:

7-Eleven

Acadia

Acme

Big Y

Best Yet

Morning Fresh

Niagara

Nature’s Place

Pricerite

Shaw’s

Shoprite

Superchill

Western Beef Blue

Wegman’s

Affected products have codes that start with the letter F or A, and a full list of codes included can be viewed here. In the meantime, the company is urging consumers to avoid drinking the water or boil it for a minute and let it cool first.

HOUSTON – Blue Bell Creameries believes the listeria found at its Oklahoma facility is likely linked to a non-sanitary room, though the company has not been able to pinpoint a single source for the contamination at its Texas plant, according to a report released Wednesday.

The Texas-company submitted information about how it plans to correct the problems to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which inspected Blue Bell plants after the company’s ice cream was linked to listeria illnesses in four states and three deaths in Kansas.

The documents, released by the FDA in response to an open records request by The Associated Press, also confirm that surface areas tested at an Alabama plant turned up the most serious form of listeria. No illnesses have been linked to products made at that facility.

Blue Bell stopped production at its plant in Brenham and at facilities in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and Alabama after issuing a national recall in April. The contaminated products have been found at the company’s Texas and Oklahoma plants.